Experts challenge claim behind Kent's resignation: Was Iran threat imminent?

Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, became the first senior Trump official to resign over the Iran war, saying on Tuesday Iran posed no imminent threat to the US, a view experts say contradicts longstanding security warnings.

In stepping down, Kent wrote that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation” – a claim that drew immediate pushback from senior officials and analysts, who said it contradicts both intelligence assessments and longstanding security warnings.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had evidence to support the decision to strike, calling Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed Kent’s assertion outright.

“I don't know where Joe Kent is getting this information, but he wasn't in those briefings,” Johnson said. “Had the president waited, we would have had mass casualties. That proposition at the end is clearly wrong.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also pushed back publicly, saying that the administration rejects the view that Iran posed no threat.

Kent resigned on Tuesday, saying he “cannot in good conscience” support the Trump administration’s war in Iran, and arguing the conflict had been driven by pressure from Israel and its supporters in the United States rather than an immediate security necessity.

President Trump dismissed him shortly afterward, calling it a “good thing” he stepped down and describing him as “very weak on security.”

'Kent’s claim contradicts years of warnings'

Analysts echoed that assessment.

“The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump, in his State of the Union address, said that Iran is a threat and Iran is thinking about directly attacking the United States. That's not Trump's imagination,” said Shayan Samii, a former US government appointee and Iranian-American analyst.

He pointed to Iran’s missile program and nuclear activity as further evidence.

“They bragged about having 60% enriched fuel, enough for eleven bombs. They told me and Jared [Kushner], ‘We're not gonna give you diplomatically what you couldn't take militarily,’” White House envoy Steve Witkoff said on March 8 alongside Trump aboard Air Force One.

Samii said such positions reinforced concerns that Iran was using diplomacy to buy time.

“They were saying, yes, we do have this material… why should we give [it] to you voluntarily?” he said.

More broadly, US security agencies have long warned that Iran poses a multifaceted threat, including cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, potential operations on US soil, drone capabilities and proxy attacks across the Middle East.

The FBI has also warned law enforcement in California of possible retaliation linked to the war, including the risk of Iranian drone activity targeting the US West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News.

Kent’s claim has also drawn emotional backlash from those directly affected by Iranian-linked violence.

“My husband, Alan, was killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq. And now, after decades, the fight is finally leading back to the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world,” a Gold Star widow wrote on X.

“You understood it when it was your loss. Now you’re minimizing it when it’s mine. You don’t get to redefine this war just because it’s not your grief anymore.”

Questions over access, motive and past ties

Against that backdrop, questions have also emerged about Kent’s access to intelligence and the motivations behind his position as well as his past political associations.

A senior administration official told Fox News Kent was “a known leaker” who had been cut out of presidential intelligence briefings months earlier and excluded from Iran-related planning – raising doubts about whether he had access to the information he was disputing.

“He has a history of white supremacism,” Jake Wallis Simons, host of the Brink podcast and a columnist with The Telegraph, told Iran International, adding that Kent’s background should be considered when evaluating his position.

Open-source reporting reviewed by Iran International shows Kent faced criticism during his political campaigns over engagement with white nationalist figures.

According to The Forward, he sought support from white nationalist Nick Fuentes and made comments describing American culture as “anti-white,” though Kent has said he disagrees with some of those views.

Stephen F. Hayes of The Dispatch reported that Kent’s former campaign manager acknowledged in texts that he had sent racist and antisemitic messages, and that a senior adviser attended a conference hosted by Fuentes.

Warren Kinsella, a former special assistant to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, said opposition to the war in some cases reflects ideology rather than security realities.

“Kent is an example of that,” Kinsella said. “The war is defensible on any number of grounds… the fact that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. This was the right thing to do.”

He added that Kent’s past associations had long raised concerns.

“Kent had long had associations with white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups,” he said. “He was widely seen as a national security risk and only got through Senate scrutiny by the skin of his teeth.”

As head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Kent oversaw the agency responsible for analyzing terrorist threats – making his assertion that Iran posed no imminent danger particularly consequential.